Setterfield discussion continued

BARRY SETTERFIELD

First, let me thank Radiochemist and Paul for persisting with me on this
matter of mass for so long. In particular I would like to thank Radiochemist
for his insistence that I calculate the difference in mass between the time
of Adam and the present. Initially, I thought that it was not possible to
get a definitive answer. However, when I went back to the paper undergoing
review, I found that it not only is possible, but the result actually
resolves the dilemma that Radiochemist and Paul have been talking about. In
so doing, it also turns out that my resort to differentiating between mass
on an atomic scale and mass macroscopically in a gravitational field becomes
totally unnecessary. I therefore apologise for any misleading information
given in the last posting and publicly retract that.

Having said that, I return to my comment a few postings ago that the graph
of mass behaves like a slowly rising saw-tooth function. During the quantum
interval, the mass rises in response to the drop in c. However, at the
quantum change, the mass drops again, only to resume a rise during the next
interval between quantum changes. It is the extent of the drop that I
considered indefinite, and that was causing the hassle and my talking around
the topic. As it turns out, a comparison between two equations in my paper
reveals that the ratio of masses when compared at neighbouring quantum jumps
is such that, with time increasing, the mass after the second quantum jump
has increased by 0.0000089114 times the mass at the first quantum jump.
Since there are about 190,770 quantum jumps from the time of Adam to now,
this means that the mass has increased such that it is now (190770 x
0.0000089114 = 1.7) that is 1.7 times greater that what it was in the days
of Adam. I trust that this now resolves the issue.

One final matter needs to be cleared up. Helen mentioned that the volume of
the electron was related to its mass. She stated that an increase in mass
meant an increase in volume. Although some have questioned the validity of
this statement, it follows directly from the formula for the classical
electron radius, and is borne out by SED theory, which indicates an
increasing ZPE tends to expand the radii of charged particles like
electrons.

Thank you again for your patience with me,

Barry.

 

KEVIN KLEIN

Barry Wrote:

Some question the validity of your statement because it doesn't make sense.
Here is the equation for classical electron radius:

r0 = e^2/(me * c^2)

r0 = electron radius
-e = charge of an electron
me = mass of an electron
c = speed of light

While it is indeed true that r0 increases with decreased mass, r0 also
decreases with the square of the speed of light. Since in your theory me
and c^2 are inversely proportional to each other, r0 remains unchanged
regarless of the value of c.

FWIW, the classical electron radius is just a theoretical concept and has no
bearing on any actual physical property of electrons. At atomic scales an
electron behaves much more like a wave than like a three-dimensional
particle.

 

PAUL OF EUGENE

from Paul of Eugene

First, a lesson for everyone in what e=mc^2 means. Then a challenge for Barry Setterfield.


As an simple exercise in understanding the equation e=mc^2, let us determine the number of foot pounds of energy in a pound of matter.

Today, the speed of light is miles per second is 186284 miles/second.

There are 5284 feet per mile. Therefore, the speed of light is 984324656 feet per second. This speed, squared, is 9.68895 x 10^17 feet^2 /seconds^2.

Since we are dealing with one pound, we multiply by one pound. For energy, then, we
have 9.68895 x 10^17 pound feet^2/seconds^2. For those of you who wonder why bother to multiply by one, I wish to point out we have now added "pound" into the DESCRIPTION of the number.

This expression, while a valid expression for energy, is not yet in units of a foot pound.

The acceleration of gravity at the earth's surface is approximately 32 feet/second^2. Remember, it is at the earth's surface we measure energy by lifting or dropping a pound for one foot.

A simple division yields 3.0278 x 10^16 foot pounds for our final result. Note how all the units conveniently "cancel" leaving foot pound as the units involved in our answer.

This is the number of foot pounds of energy in one pound of matter today. A single pound of matter, if fully converted to energy, would yield that many foot pounds of energy.

And now the challenge for Barry.

Can you duplicate my arithmetical feat, using numbers as appropriate for Adam? Because the foot pound is an established unit of energy in the archaic American system of measurement, please indulge me by using these units.

For the purpose of this exercise, I'd request you to consider the pound to be a unit of mass instead of weight. Please use an exact amount for the value of the speed of light, valid during the lifetime of Adam. You can adjust the weight factor as appropriate by adjusting the figure used for the acceleration of gravity at the earth's surface. It is up to you to come up with the appropriate acceleration of gravity based on your theory's modification of G, the modification of mass our time vs Adam's time, and whatever other factors may be involved. Your comments on your choice for the acceleration factor would be appreciated.

Your challenge is to justify quantitatively your earlier statement that the relationship between energy and mass is proportionate between the days of Adam and now. I'm sure that whatever results you get will be instructive to all of us, and will go a long ways towards helping me, at least, to understand what your theory is actually doing to Adam.

 

RADIOCHEMIST

Thanks Barry, it is good to have you on record as saying that mass
is 1.7 times greater now than it was in the time of Adam. Not much
of an increase, I think you would agree. But I am sure that some
will immediately notice the contradiction
that occurs when some of your previous statements are taken with the
above statement. For instance, you have acknowledged that Einstein's
equation relating mass and energy was as valid then as it is now.
You have also claimed that the speed of light was much greater in
Adam's day than now. My impression is that you say it was greater
by a factor of at least several hundred and perhaps several thousand.
That being the case, then the energy equivalent of mass must have been
much greater then than it is now. i.e., E = m c^2, or in words,
Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. The practical
consequences of such a situation are enormous. Since energy is
produced in the sun by fusion, and mass is converted to energy by
fusion, then the sun, based on your theory, would have been
producing many hundreds of times more energy than now, thus frying
everything on earth in a few minutes. Does that not logically follow
from your theory?

So it seems that you have two choices, either you can argue that the
mass then was much smaller than it is now, with the consequence that
Adam could not sing in an audible manner, or the second choice is
that mass was only slightly smaller then, than it is now, as given
in your response.

The second choice means that Adam can sing but that all life on
earth fries in a short time, because of the much greater energy
given off when a given amount of mass undergoes fusion.

 

MARK KLUGE

Barry Setterfield wrotes:

Setterfield's remark is correct, at least insofar as it concerns my
position, is correct; however, I think I need to clarify my position,
and
what I understand to be Tim Thompson's position, in light of
Setterfield's
further remark:

Long, long ago (probably on the CARM list) when I said that
Setterfield's
cosmology has no observable effects I was indeed referring to an older
version of Setterfield's cosmology. I cannot explicitly resource it,
but it
is quite likely that I did rely upon the now obsolete statement by
Lambert
Dolphin that Setterfield quotes in the previous pquoted paragraph.
However,
since there was no good physical reason for G to vary inversely as c
to the
fourth power, while there was a plausible reason for G to vary as c
to the
4th power, I tookly Dolphin's "inversely" to be a typographical
error. At
any rate, I understood Setterfield's theory to have G varying as c to
the
4th power.

This seemed a sensibly thing for Setterfield to have done. if G were
proportional to c to the 4th power, then, since all masses are
inversely
proportional to c squared, and since distances are time-invariant in
Setterfield's theory, all gravitational forces between bodies would be
time-invariant/ This made sense, because Setterfield's theory does
involved
time-invariant forces; The charge on the electron is strictly
constant,
distances (and wave functions) have no time-dependence associated with
changing physical parameters. Therefore, electromagnetic forces, which
depend only upon charge and current densities, would have no
dependence on
changing parameters in Setterfield's world. Additionally, the
electromagnetic, strong, and weak coupling constants, as well as all
mass
ratios are strictly time-invariant in Setterfield's theory. It was
reasonable to suppose that he intended the gravitational coupling
constant
to be constant as well, absent any statement to the contrary. If the
ratio
of gravitational forces to electromagnetic forces were strictly
constant,
and if (as is the case in Setterfield's theory) the electromagnetic
coupling
constant (the fine-structure constant) is strictly constant, it would
follow
that the dimensionless gravitational coupling constant must be
strictly
time-invariant as well.

But then, as I have pointed out, and as Tim Thompson has pointed out,
there
would be no observable difference between Setterfield's cosmology and
standard cosmology. It may be true that in Setterfield's cosmology
events
went faster in the past, but if all dimensionless quantities were
strictly
constant, then every process would go uniformly faster. Thus, if
radioactive
decay would have been speeded up, say, a million fold, so too would
have
been the earth-s orbital period about the sun, so Setterfield's 6000
years
of earth history would be compressed into something on the order of
magnitude of a day.

That is the sense which I, and I think Tim Thompson, have understood
Setterfield's cosmology to have had no observational consequences.

However, now Setterfield makes explicit that in his current
cosmology, G is
proportional to c squared, irrespective of whether it was
proportional or
inversely to c to the 4th power in his previous cosmology. With G now
proportional to c squared instead of c to the 4th power, Setterfield
is
correct that gravitational acceleration, (and not gravitational force)
between two objects is time-invariant. So now, regardless of what his
1987
theory was, whether Dolphin made a misprint or we were presumptuous in
ascribing one to Dolphin, Setterfield makes clear that in his new
theory the
ratio of electromagnetic to gravitational forces is not a constant!
For now,
if gravitational acceleration is strictly constant, it follows that
gravitational forces between two bodies vary inversely as c squared,
while
electrostatic forces, being due only to charge-distribution which
does not
change with changing c in Setterfield's new theory, is strictly
constant.
Therefore the dimensionless gravitational coupling constant is
nonconstant
in Setterfield's current theory. On the other hand, the
electromagnetic
coupling constant, the strong and weak coupling constants, and all
mass
ratios, are, If I have understood Setterfield, strictly constant in
the new
theory.

The result, then, is that there will be observable differences between
Setterfield's current theory and standard physics (with strictly
constant
constants) when one considers gravitational effects. On the other
hand,
because the other dimensionl.ess parameters are still constant, there
will
be no observable difference between Setterfield's theory and standard
physics purely in the realm of chemical or nuclear physics, where
gravitational effects may be ignored.

Thus Setterfield's statement about my position, quoted at the
beginning of
this article,

is correctly applied to Setterfield's new cosmology. However, Tim
Thompson's more general statement,

with which I would have agreed when applied to what I regarded as
Setterfield's old cosmology, does not apply to his current cosmology
in
which G varies as c squared. Tim Thompson will, of course, have to
confirm
this himself, but I have little doubt that he will agree that his
general
statement of the immediately previous quoted paragraph, does not
apply to
Setterfield's current cosmology.

There is, however, an immediate consequence of G being proportional
to c
squared in Setterfield's theory which makes it clearly physically
absurd.
You will recall that with G proportional to c squared, gravitational
accelerations are strictly constant, while gravitational forces vary
inversely as c squared. If, in Adam's day, the speed of light were 1
million
times as fast as it is today, then the gravitational force
experienced by
him would have been only one trillionth that which he would experience
today! There is no such time-variation in electrostatic forces,
however.
Electrostatic forces are the basis of chemical forces, and are, at
bottom,
the forces responsible for our muscle action. Thus, while the earth's
gravitational force was only 1 trillionth of its present value, Adam's
muscles had today's strength. What a super man! Adam can jump off the
planet! He can reach speeds greater than the earth's gravitational
escape
velocity!

But even worse, in Setterfield's world, energies of gas molecules are
not
evvected by constant decay. However, mean velocities are. The
root-mean-squared velocity of gass molecules is of order sqrt(T/m),
where T
is kinetic energy. T is not dependent on c-decay, while gas molecule
masses
vary inversely as c^2, so the RMS speed of gas molecules varies as c.
(In
other words, the expectation value of v/c is constant). With c a
million
times greater in Adam's time, air molecules would have been moving a
million
times faster than currently--on the order of a million kilometers per
second! Unfortunately for Adam & Co., the earth's gravitational escape
velocity depends only upon the acceleration due to gravity at the
earth's
surface, which is strictly constant. So the escape velocity in Adam's
day
was only about the 10 km/sec it is today. The atmosphere wouldn't have
lasted long!

 

PAUL OF EUGENE

To Mark Kluge: Thank you for your excellent post!

There is no question that Setterfield is faced with a cruel dillema for his theory. The crux for him is the question - what value shall he claim his theory predicts for the acceleration of gravity at the earth's surface during the days of Adam? If he keeps the acceleration of gravity the same as it is today, the physics of life for Adam become impossible along the lines you have so eloquently described. If he sets gravity to be stronger in step with the speed of light, then rocks fall faster, the earth orbits the sun faster, and the years - as defined by the earth circling the sun, come back to the vast numbers he sought to recoup from the universe with his faster light speed. All this you have pointed out in your post.

That said, it is also true that until Setterfield shows how gravity behaves in Adam's day his theory is incomplete. There is no reason for anyone to take seriously a theory that proposes light used to travel a million times faster back in those days but cannot say what gravity was doing at the same time.

It is possible to observe the effects of gravity in distant regions of space in various ways. Einstein's theory shows that space itself is distorted by gravity; he predicted what we now observe around galaxies, a gravitational lens effect. It turns out that the general theory of relativity shows that light is affected twice as much by gravity as if it were a classical newtonian particle traveling at light speed. This would imply that faster light in an unchanged gravitational field would be less inclined to be lensed by gravity. Doesn't this mean that gravity field strength remains linked directly to the speed of light throughout the realms where we see gravitational lenses?

In the discussions we see in this very thread Setterfield has made statements about the value of G and the alteration of mass over time that, taken together, could be used to calculate a value for the acceleration of gravity in the days of Adam. Since he only recently learned that bare mass and dressed mass of particles all manifest as real mass at the macroscopic level perhaps his comments on the behavior of gravity might need to be reviewed by him before we take them to be definitive. For this reason I defer to Setterfield to show his theory is mature enough to derive a value for Adamic acceleration of gravity on the surface of the earth.

 

HELEN

Mark, I am in no way capable of answering the math material, but I do know one thing: mass on an atomic level is not measured gravitationally. And although the technical definition of mass on a MACROscopic level may not be weight, that is essentially what is involved in measuring it. So to extrapolate that a change in microscopic mass, which is measured by how much space something takes up (volume, if it is being considered three-dimensionally) corresponds to a change in gravitational, or weight mass, is not meaningful that I can see.

To try to demonstrate what I mean: a hollow plastic ball of 3" diameter and a solid lead ball of 3" diameter would both have the same mass if measured by how much of a mark they left if covered with paint which was then blasted off onto a white sheet of paper.

But by weight their masses are very different. Can you then say that if the plastic ball were enlarged that its weight must also change? If the plastic were thinner with the enlargement, there would be no change in weight at all. But its mass by the first method would certainly have increased.

Don't push this example past where I want it to go, please. I am not saying that anything on an atomic level becomes 'thinner.' I am simply trying to show that the way you measure mass on the two different scales probably has a lot to do with this argument.

 

PAUL OF EUGENE

The only reason we don’t weight atoms or their constituent particles on scales using the earth’s gravity is because we don’t have the technology to make such itty bitty scales. We can accurately determine masses of individual atoms and electrons and such but we use their response to magnetic and/or electric fields instead, because we can.

And there is a way, in a sense, to directly measure the weight of atoms. Don’t just weigh only one. Weigh a whole bunch all together, then divide the total weight by then number of atoms, and presto, you have the weight of a single atom. This has been done, of course.

Mass as we are talking about it – which is also termed inertia – is never measured by volume. It is simply not true that mass is ever measured by the space it takes up. Readers need to understand that in the context of E=MC^2 or F=MA that volume has no place in the discussion!

The idea of thinking of measuring mass in such a way is simply incomprehensible. Since it measures volume instead of inertia, why bother? And when we talk about atoms and atomic particles, we have no way of examining the volume except by theoretically reconstructing their shapes based on our knowledge of the behavior of protons, neutrons, and electrons.

I think I know where you’re coming from. There is a way the word "mass" is used in another context that approximates volume. A radiologist, showing an x-ray to a doctor, might say "We have a suspicious mass right there . . . " and he’s not talking about the weight of anything, he’s talking about something that takes up space in the body. It’s just that you should realize - this use of the word is completely aside from our discussion here. It’s not the thing we’re talking about when we say, for example, that the vibration frequency of Adam’s vocal cords is determined by their mass! Instead, it’s the inertia of the vocal cords that counts.

I hope this clears up any confusion in the minds of our readers concerning the definition of mass. Readers who have any inkling of using the amorphous space definition of mass will have no way of accurately assessing the discussion.

 

HELEN

Paul, there are two ways atomic masses are measured: mass spectrometry and Q-values. For those who are reading who don’t know (I’m sure Paul already does), the simplified explanation of each is
1) Mass spectrometry: an atom is propelled through a magnetic field and the deviation from a central point is measured. This is the response to a ‘push’ or measurement via inertia.
2) Q-value: the measurement of mass is made by the amount of energy atomic particles give off in a reaction. The mass is calibrated via the famous E=mc2

In 1960, in the American Journal of Physics (vol 28, no. 4, pp 344-47), Robert Dicke collated the results of both methods and showed the two ways of measurements were giving different results, and that the Q-value was systematically lower than the inertial value. Interestingly, the measurements collated were taken during the time the speed of light was measured as slowing.

Now, skip to New Scientist, 3 February, 2001, pp 22-25, to an article entitled “Mass Medium” by Marcus Chown. In it he is discussing the work of Haisch, Rueda and Putoff. I would like to quote several sections of the article to offer evidence that volume is indeed involved in atomic mass considerations. In the last part of the quote, there is reference to the “three facets of mass”, which are referred to as rest mass, inertial mass, and gravitational mass. Anyway, here is the quoted material:

I hope this clears up any confusion about what I was talking about… .

 

PAUL OF EUGENE

Hi Helen! Thanks for continuing the conversation. Sorry to confess, I never heard of Q-Values until your post. So I looked them up on the internet. I found the following page on the internet that defines Q-value:

http://www.pa.msu.edu/courses/2000spring/PHY232/lectures/nuclear/einstein.html

It's not that Q-value is a method, its more that finding Q-values is hard to do. When light atoms such as deuterium and tritium combine in nuclear fusion, all the protons and neutrons come together, none of them are missing, and yet they don't weigh as much in the new combination. This missing weight or mass is the q-value. It does not go away without a trace - it shows up as energy outside the resulting atom. Hence the energy of nuclear fusion. It's a messy thing - loose neutrinos, electrons, photons, positrons, whatever. Not a simple chore to add it all up!

I had heard of this difference in mass, I just didn't know they call it the Q-value.

We disbelievers in Setterfield Physics would say that Dicke was simply making observations more accurate in the article you mentioned. I mean - that dates back to the sixties!

As for the mass versus volume thing, I'm not adverse to notions that volume may be related to mass in some ways, as long as we realize that mass is inertia, always; and e = mc^2 always.

 

RADIOCHEMIST

The above is apparently the strongest evidence you have for your
repeated attempts to establish some sort of equivalence between
mass and volume. But I want to point out that even the quote is
a very tentative suggestion and apparently is considered even
by the author as speculative. What you seem to be doing is
taking a bit of speculative writing and presenting it as an
established part of physics. I think you go too far. Notice
the use of the word "may" and also "If this were the case..."

Paul of Eugene is certainly correct in pointing out that
mass is never measured in the way you suggest. And I think
you also misunderstand the uses of mass spectroscopy and
Q values.

 

HELEN

I think Barry will be taking the time to come on in the next day or two. In the meantime, to Paul, please keep in mind that Einstein's work is from the TWENTIES! Does that invalidate it?

And no one is arguing regarding inertia being the determiner of mass. The problem is that inertia is dependent on gravity for those things large enough to be affected by gravity, and therefore gravity is their determining factor. The inertia of subatomic particles, however, is not affected by gravity, and therefore the measurement of mass at that level is dependent upon another 'background force' entirely. So whether or not it is inertia in both cases, the primary cause of each is different and this must be recognized. In the case of subatomic particles we are dealing with energy, right? And if the 'zitterbewegung' or jittery motion of the particles is affected by energy, which it is, then the amount of space these particles take up at any given instant is also affected, right? And then that means that any measurement of inertia, as seen by displacement in spectrometry, is going to have to reflect this as well.

In the meantime, no one is arguing with E-mc^2, OK?

 

BARRY SETTERFIELD

Many thanks to Paul of Eugene, Mark Kluge and Radiochemist for their analysis of the shortcomings of the lightspeed model as they perceive it. They have made a few incorrect statements. Nevertheless, their criticisms have been noted, and come at a time when I am re-assessing certain aspects of the mass/gravitational presentation in order to make sure that the Vc (variable lightspeed) theory accords with experimental data. Among that data is the graph by Robert Dicke that Helen noted, as well as recent experimental results. They should also be aware that when the SED equations are used in a varying c context, there is a difference between the behaviour of the ‘dressed’ mass and ‘bare’ mass as shown in the 2001 paper. However, until that aforementioned re-assessment process is complete, I will elaborate no further.

In the meantime, one other related matter needs to be put firmly on the line. It concerns the volume of the electron, and Helen’s statements relating it to mass. In order to put her words into a correct context, here are two edited paragraphs from the 2001 paper undergoing review.

Any quantum change in radius is thereby accompanied by a quantum change in mass according to the formula for the classical electron radius. This is explored in the paper mathematically. So basically, Helen is absolutely correct in relating the mass of the electron to its volume on the basis of this formula alone, quite apart from the effects noted above of a changing ZPE. Remember that electron mass is a slowly rising sawtooth function with a drop at the quantum change. Since charge is also involved, the overall result is an increase in both electron radius and mass with time.

If the references noted above are required, they can be supplied.

 

PAUL OF EUGENE

Greetings, Helen, may the Lord continue to bless you in every way.

Concering my comment about Dicke you stated:

All science work stands or falls on its merits. But as I interpret Dicke's work - based, mind you, solely on how you quoted him - his work was good work, correcting earlier inaccuracies!

I'm relieved!

Now there you lost me. I suppose you are aware that single atoms and even subnuclear particles respond to the gravitational force? Perhaps you can clarify this statement for me.

I wouldn't say that. Instead, if quantum jitters play a part in explaining inertia, I would say that the cause holds all the way up to the largest bodies, they simply show the result of the summation of all the jitters of all their constituent parts. There should be a grand unity in the theoretical explanation of inertia, one that applies from the smallest ultra-light neutrinoes all the way to the biggest black holes.

OK!

Say, if I visit Australia, what is the best time of year to see the Clouds of Magellan?

 

MARK KLUGE

Helen wrote:

Mark, I am in no way capable of answering the math material

Since my post contained no significant mathematical material I cannot determine what material Helen says she is incapable of answering. If she, or someone else cannot understand some part of what I have written, then please point out what part(s) and I’ll be happy to try to explain it (them). This post, is not so much elucidatory of my previous post, but rather a response to specific remarks

I do know one thing: mass on an atomic level is not measured gravitationally. And although the technical definition of mass on a MACROscopic level may not be weight, that is essentially what is involved in measuring it.

It does not matter. Although atomic-sized masses generally are not measured gravitationally, their masses have been so measured. The results are the same as for inertially-measured masses.

Since Newton first raised the question it has always been found that gravitational and inertial masses are equivalent. The experimental limit on their difference, even back in the late 1950s was only one part in 10^12 (one part in a trillion for American readers). I do not know if this result of Dicke has been improved upon since. This holds for all different materials no matter what fractions of their mass is from electrons and what fraction is from nuclear matter. The result is that the gravitational masses of sub-atomic particles are equal (to within experimental error) their inertial masses.

While it is true that precision measurements of macroscopic masses usually measure (or compare) gravitational masses, relatively-imprecisely-determined inertial masses of macroscopic objects have never been found to differ from their gravitational masses. Similarly, the relatively imprecisely-determined gravitational masses of microscopic objects (at say, the atomic scale or below) have never been found to differ from their inertial masses. It just doesn’t matter how they are determined.

If Setterfield supposes that the ratios of gravitational to inertial mass have differed from unity in the past, that’s fine; but he needs to be explicit about it. Hitherto he has not even suggested time-dependence in the equivalence of the two.

So to extrapolate that a change in microscopic mass…to a change in gravitational, or weight mass, is not meaningful that I can see.

On the contrary. Since it is always found that a macroscopic mass is equal to the sum of its microscopic mass constituents (plus binding energy), it is trivial to calculate the time-variation of one in terms of the time-variation of the other.

Mass is not measured by how much space something takes up.

To try to demonstrate what I mean: a hollow plastic ball of 3" diameter and a solid lead ball of 3" diameter would both have the same mass if measured by how much of a mark they left if covered with paint which was then blasted off onto a white sheet of paper.

My face is more beautiful than Marilyn Monroe’s if we measure beauty by quantity and length of facial hair. The trouble is that facial beauty isn’t measured by quantity and length of facial hair. Neither is mass measured by how much of a mark is left if covered with paint.

Don't push this example past where I want it to go, please. I am not saying that anything on an atomic level becomes 'thinner.' I am simply trying to show that the way you measure mass on the two different scales probably has a lot to do with this argument.

The problem is that, in fact, experimentally the method of measuring mass just doesn’t matter as far as accuracy is concerned. It is only in precision measurements (e.g., measuring a particular object’s mass as 2.33423 grams rather than, say, 2.3 grams that gravitational methods (using a precision balance) gives better results than inertial methods (say, by measuring the period of a mass-spring system oscillating horizontally over a smooth surface.)

The compatibility of scales is indeed an interesting experimental problem in all areas of physics. But don’t you think that physicists have been smart enough to compare practical measuring standards for different scales? For masses, they currently compare just fine.

(That was not always so. Early in the 20th century the charge/mass ratio of the electron was easily measurable by the equivalent of mass spectrometric methods. The electron’s charge and mass were not, at first, independently measurable. However, R. A. Millikan eventually succeeded in measuring the electronic charge with his famous falling oil drop experiment. So, given the electron’s charge/mass ratio and its charge, its mass could be calculated. Similarly the masses of larger (atomic or molecular scale) particles could be measured compared to that of the electron.

However, it turned out that Millikan was off by almost 1% in his electronic charge measurement. (His value for the viscosity of air was off.) So although the experimentally-determined atomic masses in terms of electron masses were unaffected, they were off when compared to the standard kilogram. This was, however, corrected when absolute wavelength standards for x-rays made it possible to measure crystal lattice constants sufficiently precisely to calculate precisely the number of atoms per unit volume, thus enabling direct comparison between macroscopic and microscopic mass scales.)

And no one is arguing regarding inertia being the determiner of mass. The problem is that inertia is dependent on gravity for those things large enough to be affected by gravity

That is false. As I noted above one can, in principle, use Newton’s second law, F = ma where the total force can be any gravitational or nongravitational force. One can measure F and a independently, and so infer m.

It is true that practical precise measurements of mass are done gravitationally, but that is not necessary in principle.

The inertia of subatomic particles, however, is not affected by gravity

I don’t know what being “affected” by gravity is supposed to mean here. Gravity accelerates sub-atomic particles the same as macroscopic particles. The inertia of macroscopic particles isn’t “affected” by gravity either, in the sense that macroscopic masses do not depend upon the strength of the gravitational field in which those masses happen to lie.

In the case of subatomic particles we are dealing with energy, right? And if the 'zitterbewegung' or jittery motion of the particles is affected by energy, which it is, then the amount of space these particles take up at any given instant is also affected, right? And then that means that any measurement of inertia, as seen by displacement in spectrometry, is going to have to reflect this as well.

That is garbled and confused. Straightforwardly, though, Zitterbewegung (note the capitalization of the first letter of the German noun) has no measurable effect on spectrometric mass determinations. For there to be a measurable effect the spectrometer scale gradations would have to be of the same order as the Zitterbewegung, since the Zitterbewegung, since in spectrometric measurements one assumes that the particles’ whose masses are to be measured are effectively point masses compared to other length scales. Since spectrometer gradations are never smaller than the sizes of atoms, while Zitterbewegung sizes are orders of magnitude smaller, the effect is ignored. (Also note that the “effect” is not strictly upon the masses themselves, but upon the ability of a spectrometer to measure them precisely. Anyway, since both atomic sizes and Zitterbewegung radius for subatomic particles are strictly time-independent in Setterfield’s theory, there is no time-dependent effect either in masses or in the ability of a spectrometer to measure them.

One should also note that the “space” taken up by a quantum object like a sub-atomic particle at all but the highest energies is not well-defined. The “space” taken up by an electron is usually understood as some measure of the volume of space where its “wave function” differs significantly from zero. For electrons in the outer shells of atoms, that volume is essentially the volume which we conventionally take as the volume of that atom. This has nothing to do with the mass of the electron.

In the meantime, no one is arguing with E-mc^2, OK?

I should point out here that in E = mc^2, the m is the inertial mass. If gravitational mass were ever found to differ from inertial mass, the m would have to refer to inertial mass. This is not easy to see, but follows trivially from the derivation of Einstein’s equation. If Helen or Setterfield wishes to consider a theory of different
time-variations for inertial and gravitational masses, they should bear this in mind.

Paul, please keep in mind that Einstein's work is from the TWENTIES! Does that invalidate it?

Helen, Dicke’s 1960 AJP paper was, apparently, pretty much a one-shot deal with little or no followup. Other physicists over the years haven’t seen the systematic difference it suggests. Ordinary prudence suggests that one not make too much of that paper.

Einstein’s work, on the other hand (mostly done prior to 1920) has been extensively tested and confirmed, and has been continually part of the fundamental basis of physics ever since it was published. Old work isn’t necessarily worthless, or even suspect; but if it has not been confirmed in some way by new work, then the old work is always dangerous to rely upon.

 

PAUL OF EUGENE

Here's a minor mystery for the believers in Setterfield physics.

Consider these high energy elementary particles:

http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992192

In order to travel with that amount of kinetic energy, these protons have to be travelling when they arrive at earth at 99.9999 per cent of the speed of light. Basically, once particals such as these cosmic rays reach almost the speed of light, the more you accelerate them, they can't speed up any more to any significant degree, you instead see them gain mass according to Einstein's theory of relativity.

Now consider this. According to Setterfield theory, light speed reached a minimum even lower than it has today and then got faster. Helen put it this way in her post at

http://www.baptistboard.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic&f=36&t=000152&p=2

The mystery is this: Since nothing can travel faster than light, when light was slower, the cosmic rays flung at us from these far away galaxies would have been slowed down by the force of that change. So - when light speeded up again - what made the particles start to move faster again? They are moving so closely to the speed of light today that somehow they must have speeded up. What process can make particles cruising along suddenly start to go faster? Why would such a process speed them up instead of slow them down or make them move sideways?

There is no problem of course for the standard view, in which light speed has been constant all that time.

 

RADIOCHEMIST

My comments: Someone has already noted that Helen is mistaken in
saying that inertia is dependent on gravity, but I want to point
out why she is mistaken. As shown below from a physics glossary
found on the Internet, inertia is the property of a body which
resists change in its motion. However, inertia is quite independent
of a gravitational field, and a body will resist a change in its
motion even in zero gravity, because of inertia. Inertia is a function
of the density of an object, with extremely dense objects having
more inertia than objects less dense. Obviously the density, in
terms of mass per unit volume, is entirely independent of gravity.
When you go around a curve in a roller coaster or take a curve in a
car at high speed, you feel yourself pressed to the outside of the
curve. That feeling is caused by inertia and you would feel the same
thing even in the absence of gravity.

Inertia - A descriptive term for that property of a body which
resists change in its motion. Two kinds of changes of motion are
recognized: changes in translational motion, and changes in
rotational motion.

 

HELEN

The simplest way to put this is that Radiochemist is completely right and I was wrong. Please understand that Barry had nothing to do with my errors there -- they were completely my own. Although I have tried to present some of his work here, I am NOT in physics and this error of mine was so elementary that it is really embarrassing.

I think I will stick to the life sciences from now on, which is where my own areas of study and interest lie!

Because Barry is extremely busy right now with an article he is preparing as well as selling a house and buying a new one for his sister, he will probably not be able to respond to anything here for awhile and I have just learned in capital letters not to try for him!

Thank you to Radiochemist and humble pie is not so bad tasting after the first bite!

 

MARK KLUGE

Paul of Eugene wrote:

I do not think this is a serious problem, although nowhere in the voluminous writings on c-decay do I find the solution. Still, it’s pretty clear what one has to do. I therefore take the liberty here of being the first to publish what shall henceforth without doubt be referred to as the Neo-Newtonian First and Second Laws of Motion. They should be understood to be replacements for, or modifications of, the more famous Newton’s First and Second Laws of Motion.

Let us first review the conventional Newton’s Laws of motion. Newton’s First law states that an object in motion at a given velocity will stay in motion with that same velocity unless acted upon by some force. Newton’s second law states that the total (vector sum) of the forces acting on an object is equal to the time rate of change of its linear momentum.

In Newton’s world of c-independent masses (and time-independent c), the mass of an isolated body remained constant. Therefore, for Newton, if an object has no force acting upon it,

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> d
---- mv = 0
dt</pre>[/QUOTE]or
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> d
---- p(t) = 0
dt</pre>[/QUOTE]where p = mv is the body’s linear momentum.
(“Code” sections are present because I want my equations to be displayed in unformatted, fixed-space text.)

Similarly, Newton’s second law is
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> d
F = ---- p(t)
dt</pre>[/QUOTE]Newton’s First Law is a statement of conservation of linear momentum for a body left to itself. But in the c-varying world to which Paul of Eugene refers, the mass of an object is time-dependent m ~ 1/c², so in the absence of forces the product mv cannot be conserved unless v ~ c² for a particle in the absence of force. (Strictly speaking this should only be applied to nonrelativistic situations where v is negligible compared to c.) That doesn’t work, though, since the kinetic energy of a free particle would then be proportional co c², and would not be time-dependent.

If c is time-varying and energy is conserved,, then for a nonrelativistic free particle, K = ½mv² with m ~ 1/c² he must have v proportional to c. That is, v/c = constant for a free particle. This means that the usual expression for linear momentum, mv, is not conserved even for a free particle; but the quantity mvc for a free particle would be conserved if the particle’s kinetic energy, K = ½mv² = ½(mc)²(v/c)² is conserved. (I am working in only one dimension. The student is invited to do the multidimensional case as an exercise.)

The above follows merely from conservation of kinetic energy for a free, nonrelativistic particle. Since we have mvc = constant for a free particle, we are led immediately to propose what must be the Neo-Newtonian First Law of Motion, for a free particle,

</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> d
---- mvc = 0.
dt</pre>[/QUOTE]This, in turn, leads us immediately to what must be the Neo-Newtonian Second Law of Motion:
</font><blockquote>code:</font><hr /><pre style="font-size:x-small; font-family: monospace;"> d
---- mvc = Fc.
dt</pre>[/QUOTE]Note that both proposed laws reduce to their Newtonian counterparts in the limit of constant c.

Of course I have plausibly-argued these only for the nonrelativistic case; but it can be shown that they will hold for the relativistic case as well, and I leave the demonstration as an exercise for the student. (Translation: I just showed you how to do the easy one. Now go home and do the hard one for yourself!) Hint: Consider the ultra-relativistic case where the particle’s rest mass is negligible. One then has E = pc. Again, if E is conserved, then, obviously, pc must also be conserved. Thus the Neo-Newtonian First Law of Motion holds in the ultra-relativistic case. We now have it established in the nonrelativistic and ultra-relativistic limits. All that is left is the (harder) general intermediate case.

And, of course, in the force-free situation if v/c is constant, rather than v – constant, then Paul of Eugene’s problem is trivially solved. Those cosmic ray particles traveling at 99.9999+% of the speed of light have been traveling the same fraction of the speed of light ever since interacted upon by the last (nonnegligible) force. (I am really oversimplifying. Since cosmic ray particles are mostly charged, they will experience a nonnegligible force of the galactic magnetic field; however, since magnetic forces are always normal to a particle’s velocity, while they can affect a particle’s velocity they do not, of course, affect its speed.

It is truly regrettable that so much of advanced cosmology, atomic and particle physics has been written concerning time-varying c, but nary a mite of the most elementary physics of his world. This essay has sought to remedy that defect by setting before the public for the first time what must be the basic laws of motion for time-varying c theory.